We took an early flight to Portland. We got up at 4am... and left LAX around 6:30am. Karen picked us up at the airport at 8:30am. So, our first plan was to go get breakfast at Tin Shed in the Alberta Arts District. (Karen planned out the whole itinerary for us before we went!) On Friday morning, we were surprised how crowded the restaurant was! We had to wait for about 20 min. to be seated.

Amazing breakfast. Each dish had some very interesting names...
I ordered scrambled eggs called "Salm I Am" which came with smoked salmon, roasted red peppers, sweet onion, roasted garlic, topped with fresh dill, cream cheese & capers with a choice of shed potato cakes or cheese grits. I wasn't really sure what the potato cakes or the cheese grits were... but I decided to go with the potato cakes which ended up being a better choice :) This plate was so delicious! Paul ordered "Sweet Chix" (pic middle) which came with chicken apple sausage, sweet onion, basil, roasted red peppers and brie cheese, topped with green apple with cheese grits. (Sorry Paul :D I made him order cheese grits since I got the potato cakes!) Besides cheese grits, he enjoyed everything on the plate. Karen ordered a plate called "Everything Nice" which came with pretty much everything from salty to sweet (pic right) with potato cakes. She was very happy with her plate as well. Yummy yummy! I would order the Salm I Am again if I went back there!

After our lovely breakfast, we walked around the Alberta District a bit more and checked out a few of the little boutique stores. Many places we visited seemed to have a sewing machine in the back of the store, and many places sold their original clothes along side many other clothing lines, which I thought was neat. We also visited this cool store called "OFFICE". It is an art gallery that is also mixed with many different cool stationarery items, bags, magazine racks, and old refurbished desks and office furniture. I highly recommend stopping by when you're in Portland.

Our next stop was Mississippi about 5 min drive from Alberta District.
By then it was around 2pm, so we decided to have a snack at Laughing Planet. It was featured in Karen's blog a while back, and this was one of the places we were interested in checking out. The place is very cute inside, decorated with many collectible vinyl Toys. Some of the tables had toys, so we decided to dine with one of the dinosaurs :) I was not so hungry since our breakfast was huge! But, I had bites of the spinach & jack cheese quesadilla and a few sips of Paul's blended fruit drink. They were very fresh and tasty indeed.

At night, Karen took us to the restaurant called Clarklewis, a sophisticated contemporary restaurant run by Executive Chef Daniel Mattern. He is known to cook with fresh locally sourced products without manipulating the original flavor. None of my food pictures came out since it was too dark... but Karen's pictures came out great!

Overall experience of this place was definitely 4 and 1/2 stars!! Excellent atmosphere and food. The restaurant is located in an industrial area of downtown Portland and a few blocks from the Willamette River. Throughout the day, Paul and I kept noticing that many places in Portland renovate the cool old buildings with glass panel garage doors for their store front. And the whole side of this restaurant featured this style of garage door, and they were all open to the street below. So, even though you are dining inside, you can enjoy the outdoor breeze and this created a cool indoor/outdoor feel.

Everyone ordered something different, so we got to sample a variety of different foods. I ordered pan-roasted manila clams with fennel, white wine, roasted tomato & garlic which had a very strong nice flavor of fennel and garlic. This might have been the best dish of the night! My second favorite was Karen's Sauvie Island heirloom tomatoes with lemon cucumbers, marinated feta & mint. The heirloom tomatoes were so juicy... and lemon cucumbers were so refreshing... a nice combination with the mint.

Our entrees weren't as exciting as the starters, but I was happy with my braised leg & grilled loin of rabbit with chanterelles & glazed ninja turnips. I had never tried rabbit before, so I decided to try :) The rabbit was so tender and very tasty. I'm not really sure if the chanterelles mushroom or the turnips went well with the dish though, but it was solid and a very satisfying dish. Paul decided to order the sauteed skate wing with red wine beluga lentils & basil brown butter... the dish our waiter recommended. We all tasted his dish, but our reaction wasn't that great. Karen ordered one of the pasta dishes... and it had great flavor, but the pasta wasn't cooked right... or maybe there wasn't enough sauce.

This place was so busy... and packed with so many people! By the time we were going to go over the dessert menu, the waiter informed us that everything had already sold out! Wow!

If we have a chance to go back there again, we would like to order more of the traditional menu... definitely try their steak and salmon to determine their entree quality.